Counter-Currents. Agnes Repplier
Magazine" for September, 1912, gives an almost perfect example of the modern point of view, of the emotional treatment of an economic question, and of the mental confusion which arises from the substitution of sympathy for exactness.
"I have shut my little sister in from life and light
(For a rose, for a ribbon, for a wreath across my hair),
I have made her restless feet still until the night,
Locked from sweets of summer, and from wild spring air:
I who ranged the meadow-lands, free from sun to sun,
Free to sing, and pull the buds, and watch the far wings fly,
I have bound my sister till her playing-time is done,—
Oh, my little sister, was it I?—was it I?
"I have robbed my sister of her day of maidenhood
(For a robe, for a feather, for a trinket's restless spark),
Shut from Love till dusk shall fall, how shall she know good,
How shall she pass scatheless through the sinlit dark?
I who could be innocent, I who could be gay,
I who could have love and mirth before the light went by,
I have put my sister in her mating-time away,—
Sister, my young sister, was it I?—was it I?
"I have robbed my sister of the lips against her breast
(For a coin, for the weaving of my children's lace and lawn),
Feet that pace beside the loom, hands that cannot rest:
How can she know motherhood, whose strength is gone?
I who took no heed of her, starved and labor worn,
I against whose placid heart my sleepy gold-heads lie,
Round my path they cry to me, little souls unborn,—
God of Life—Creator! It was I! It was I."
Now if by "I" is meant the average woman who wears the "robe," the "ribbon," the "feather," and possibly—though rarely—the "wreath across my hair," "I" must protest distinctly against assuming a guilt which is none of mine. I have not shut my little sister in a factory, any more than I have ranged the meadow-lands, "free from sun to sun." What I probably am doing is trying to persuade my sister to cook my dinner, and sweep my house, and help me to take care of my "gold-heads," who are not always so sleepy as I could desire. If my sister declines to do this at a wage equal to her factory earnings, and with board and lodging included, she is well within her rights, and I have no business, as is sometimes my habit, weakly to complain of her decision. If I made my household arrangements acceptable to her, she would come. As this is difficult or distasteful to me, she goes to a factory instead. The right of every man and woman to do the work he or she chooses to do, and can do, at what wages, and under what conditions he or she can command, is the fruit of centuries of struggle. It is now so well established that only the trade unions venture to deny it.
In that vivid and sad study of New York factory life, published some years ago by the Century Company, under the title of "The Long Day," a girl who is out of work, and who has lost her few possessions in a lodging-house fire, seeks counsel of a wealthy stranger who has befriended her.
"The lady looked at me a moment out of fine, clear eyes.
"'You would not go into service, I suppose?' she asked slowly.
"I had never thought of such an alternative before, but I met it without a moment's hesitation. 'No, I would not care to go into service,' I replied; and, as I did so, the lady's face showed mingled disappointment and disgust.
"'That is too bad,' she answered, 'for, in that case, I'm afraid I can do nothing for you.' And she went out of the room, leaving me, I must confess, not sorry for having thus bluntly decided against wearing the definite badge of servitude."
Here at least is a refreshingly plain statement of facts. The girl in question bore the servitude imposed upon her by the foremen of half a dozen factories; she slept for many months in quarters which no domestic servant would consent to occupy; she ate food which no servant would be asked to eat; she associated with young women whom no servant would accept as equals and companions. But, as she had voluntarily relinquished comfort, protection, and the grace of human relations between employer and employed, she accepted her chosen conditions, and tried successfully to better them along her chosen lines. The reader is made to understand that it was as unreasonable for the benevolent lady—who had visions of a trim and white-capped parlor-maid dancing be fore her eyes—to show "disappointment and disgust" because her overtures were rejected, as it would have been to charge the same lady with robbing the girl of her "day of maidenhood," and her "little souls unborn," by shutting her up in a factory. If we will blow our minds clear of generous illusions, we shall understand that an emotional verdict has no validity when offered as a criterion of facts.
The excess of sentiment, which is misleading in philanthropy and economics, grows acutely dangerous when it interferes with legislation, or with the ordinary rulings of morality. The substitution of a sentimental principle of authority for the impersonal processes of law confuses our understanding, and undermines our sense of justice. It is a painful truth that most laws have had their origin in a profound mistrust of human nature (even Mr. Olney admits that the Constitution, although framed in the interests of freedom, is not strictly altruistic); but the time is hardly ripe for brushing aside this ungenerous mistrust, and establishing the social order on a basis of pure enthusiasm. The reformers who lightheartedly announce that people are "tired of the old Constitution anyway," voice the buoyant creed of ignorance. I once heard a popular lecturer say of a popular idol that he "preferred making precedents to following them," and the remark evoked a storm of applause. It was plain that the audience considered following a precedent to be a timorous and unworthy thing for a strong man to do; and it was equally plain that nobody had given the matter the benefit of a serious thought. Believers in political faith-healing enjoy a supreme immunity from doubt.
This growing contempt for paltry but not unuseful restrictions, this excess of sentiment, combined with paucity of humour and a melodramatic attitude toward crime, has had some discouraging results. It is ill putting the strong man, or the avenging angel, or the sinned-against woman above the law, which is a sacred trust for the preservation of life and liberty. It is ill so to soften our hearts with a psychological interest in the lawbreaker that no criminal is safe from popularity. The "Nation" performed a well-timed duty when it commented grimly on the message sent to the public by a murderer, and a singularly cold-blooded murderer, through the minister who attended him on the scaffold: "Mr. Beattie desired to thank his many friends for kind letters and expressions of interest, and the public for whatever sympathy was felt or expressed."
It sounds like a cabinet minister who has lost an honoured and beloved wife; not like an assassin who has lured his wife to a lonely spot, and there pitilessly killed her. One fails to see why "kind letters" and "expressions of interest" should have poured in upon this malefactor, just as one fails to see why a young woman who shot her lover a few months later in Columbus, Ohio, should have received an ovation in the court-room. It was not even her first lover (it seldom is); but when a gallant jury had acquitted her of all blame in the trifling matter of manslaughter, "the crowd shouted its approval"; "scores of women rushed up to her, and insisted upon kissing her"; and an intrepid suitor, stimulated by circumstances which might have daunted a less mettlesome man, announced his intention of marrying the heroine on the spot.
In New York a woman murdered her lover because he refused his aid—a dastardly refusal—when her husband had cast her off. She was not only acquitted by a jury,—which was to be expected; but the husband, pleased with the turn affairs had taken, restored her to his home and his affections; and a sympathetic newspaper offered this explanation to a highly gratified public: "They are Sicilians, and in Sicily a woman may retrieve her own honour and avenge her husband's, only by doing as this woman had done."
Perhaps.